Out of Body Experience

"Avon" wrote:
I've actually been looking into such things for a bit and I think that we may be able to enhance such an experience with the use of other items in conjunction with the Oculus Rift. By using something such as a NeuroSky Mindwave or Emotiv EPOC, we could get sufficient amounts of data for custom software to adjust to the heartbeats and mindsets of players on a more personal level.

I entirely agree. That's probably one of the most exciting new frontiers for me with regards to this tech.

I've been working on the side with a neuroscience lab in SF, (the Gazzaley Lab), and they are all over that stuff like nobodies business. If you keep an eye out in the next few days I think they'll be all over the news for a published study in Nature this month proving beneficial aspects to video games. (the game is NeuroRacer they tested over a few years)

According to Gazzaley (and I may not have this perfectly right as I'm recalling a conversation) the future becomes trans-cranial magnetic stimulation, trans-cranial current stimulation, realtime eeg, plus specific VR experiences in a closed system to specifically target defective areas of the brain.. and then possibly even pharmaceutical support for these experiences. Hopefully the articles that show up this week talk about it.

"Avon" wrote:


My particular focus at this time is on making the transition between different products in a hub system (think Peach's Castle in Mario 64, but for entirely different games rather than levels) serve a mood changing purpose in order to attune the player to the mindset we feel is best for experiencing the settings and gameplay of the different games. Biofeedback provides us with an excellent method of gaining data on the mindset player have coming in, which we then have software modify by using subliminal mood changing using subtle aesthetic cues (color, edge smoothing, music matching) to get the user to where we need them to be. The out of body sensation with the usage of a heart beat being described could be helpful in supporting this end.

super cool!

"Avon" wrote:

Just going to throw this in here as well, but has anyone thought of trying to synch a virtual hand to one's actual hand using the Leap Motion or Kinect? I'd imagine the Body Transfer Illusion could have profoundly more powerful effect if the simulated body part actually responded to commands.

I don't know anyone that's replicated the OBE experiment yet- and I'm still figuring out my midi hearbeat monitor.. but I'm sure from there its all sorts of interesting design choice decisions. I just want to see if the OBE phenomenon is for real- or if its actually just a newbies reaction to VR.

"Avon" wrote:
BTW, this is my first post on this forum.

Welcome! and hope it's the first of many.. ;)

I have built a crude app to try this. I did not add the heart beat flash but I did feel like I was out of body when I would reach toward the camera. When my fingers would get close to the lenses i could feel the sensation on my face as if it was being touched. http://i.imgur.com/SudYLkN.jpg

"codibonney" wrote:
I have built a crude app to try this. I did not add the heart beat flash but I did feel like I was out of body when I would reach toward the camera. When my fingers would get close to the lenses i could feel the sensation on my face as if it was being touched. http://i.imgur.com/SudYLkN.jpg

Your results sound promising. When I think about it, I wonder how this experience could be enhanced by adding controls into the mix. I'm picturing a set that uses this in conjunction with the body transfer illusion and controls to really mess around with our perception.

To begin, you'd use an Oculus Rift with positional tracking mods in conjunction with a leap motion or kinect and a character model similar to you in appearance to set up the Rubber Hand Illusion. Since the motion sensors would allow for your upper body to well simulated by the technologies being implemented, the effect would be easy as all you'd be doing is convincing your mind to perceive the virtual body as being the same as it's actual one. After a while, whether with an assistant or simple timer the body would lock in place and cease to change, but the camera that determines perspective would be separated from the character model. Allowing this now freed camera to move freely based on the positional tracking of the modified Rift would essentially create a smooth transition to an out of body experience. Oh boy, just imagining it is giving me goosebumps. I can already picture a game where you could suddenly jump out of your body and go into another body to control. It'd be just like being a ghost.

Perhaps it won't work, but just the potential for things like that remind me why I love the VR concept so very much. PS, if it does work, someone tell Ubisoft Reflections to work it into a Driver San Fransico style game.

PS. Cute kitty in the background FTW. :D

"Avon" wrote:
I've actually been looking into such things for a bit and I think that we may be able to enhance such an experience with the use of other items in conjunction with the Oculus Rift. By using something such as a NeuroSky Mindwave or Emotiv EPOC, we could get sufficient amounts of data for custom software to adjust to the heartbeats and mindsets of players on a more personal level.

That Nature magazine article i was talking about dropped today-
http://www.nature.com/news/gaming-improves-multitasking-skills-1.13674

The lab is really up to some amazing stuff that goes hand in hand with the Rift.
I'll ask em if I can release the stuff I've been working on here.

Regarding the OBE- I bailed on the MIDI implementation and going OSC..
Can't wait to see if it works!!

A heads up I got the OBE app working last night at 4am.

I tried it out for 10 seconds.. then stopped.
it initially felt pretty powerful, i think i get it-

Waiting until later tonight to give it a legitimate whirl and then I'll post with reactions.

If you don't hear from me for a couple of days please call Jeff Bridges for help !!. ;)

AG

"antigravity" wrote:
A heads up I got the OBE app working last night at 4am.

I tried it out for 10 seconds.. then stopped.
it initially felt pretty powerful, i think i get it-

Waiting until later tonight to give it a legitimate whirl and then I'll post with reactions.

If you don't hear from me for a couple of days please call Jeff Bridges for help !!. ;)

AG

Fascinating! :D Now I'm really curious as to how far we can take this technique in the future. Actually, this whole concept actually reminds me a bit about the sensory substitution information I've been looking up since yesterday. Could it be that an out of body experience's disconnect from the actual body is actually making the mind substitute as many senses as possible with what it has left? In this case, vision would be substituted for the senses of proprioception and even heart beat if this is anything to go by. If this turns out to be the case, than this could prove extremely helpful in these early days of virtual reality development for making up for different stimuli that we can't easily cover at this moment in time.

This is just a hypothesis, but perhaps people under the effects of the body transfer illusion are more prone to substituting a lack of or poor fidelity in one sense with data input from another. That is to say the increased immersion effect caused by the heart rate matching and the rubber hand illusion are just our brain using vision to substitute for senses that are in question; the heart rate being taken from visual inputs due to a discrepancy in proprioception; the rubber hand being taken in as our actual hand due to visual and tactile inputs matching. A lot more research needs to be done on the matter before conclusive answers can be gained, but the possibilities are certainly enticing, if I do say so myself.

Also AG, if you don't come out, fret not for Jeff will find you with or without our asking. Though honestly, I'd say you should take advantage of the opportunity and ask to be sent to one of those 3d "adult" games for... testing purposes or perhaps to be loaded into a session of the Sims, but as god instead of random individual.

OBE Update: I had some free time tonight to commit to the experiment.

For me, it was definitely an experience.

The initial effect of connecting with an avatar mirroring your heartrate was pretty profound. Something about really feeling your heart pulse, observing the subtle connections between what can speed up your heart rate or slow it down was pretty cool. It also has this great calming effect when you are visualizing these atomic pulses going through your body.

It's like when you try to be still- you're never really still because there's this vascular rumbling going inside you. But when you can visualize and register the rumbling clearly- you can focus on the actual stillness underneath.. Sorry to sound like a hippie here- not my intent.. But I bet there's some beneficial meditative properties to be found here.

Then I committed to it for about 10 minutes straight and got a taste of the OBE experience.. It wasn't like I left my body completely and entered the avatar- It was more like the avatar was a physical extension of me and I kept my body, (although I had trouble feeling my actual heart beat with my hand on my chest!! the visual pulsing somehow took precedence and I couldn't register the sensation...)

The way my demo scene was set up it felt kind of awkward.. My brain kept focusing on getting some sort of visual perception from the avatar facing away from me.. I had a bizzare moment where I felt like I was pulled close under the avatars hat brim looking out.. and I really perceived my skin as being made of pixels in a very clear way. That messed with me a bit and thought i'd be stuck in minecraft land forever. lol.. but in general, that setup of looking at an avatar from the back seems like a bad way to experience it.. but it was how they did the original experiments so I stuck to it.

I'm thinking you'd have a more complete experience if it was you looking at an avatars reflection in a mirror. .. or possibly if you were laying on your back looking up at an avatar floating above you looking down.

Another method might be placing yourself inside a huge transparent avatar- where it actually registers as a solid extension of your body.

Or even having the pulsing exist throughout the entire scene.. probably starting close, but then drawing you outward as it expands to include the whole environment.

Trippy sh1t man.. more tests at the next chunk of free time for sure.. My buddy really wants to be godzilla and who am I to deny him. ;)

The wall-street journal ran a good article on the phenominon -
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324591204579036752120097292.html

The actual research article in Psychology Science isn't out til later in the year, but can't wait to give it a look for some direction here.

"Avon" wrote:

Fascinating! :D Now I'm really curious as to how far we can take this technique in the future. Actually, this whole concept actually reminds me a bit about the sensory substitution information I've been looking up since yesterday. Could it be that an out of body experience's disconnect from the actual body is actually making the mind substitute as many senses as possible with what it has left? In this case, vision would be substituted for the senses of proprioception and even heart beat if this is anything to go by. If this turns out to be the case, than this could prove extremely helpful in these early days of virtual reality development for making up for different stimuli that we can't easily cover at this moment in time.

This is just a hypothesis, but perhaps people under the effects of the body transfer illusion are more prone to substituting a lack of or poor fidelity in one sense with data input from another. That is to say the increased immersion effect caused by the heart rate matching and the rubber hand illusion are just our brain using vision to substitute for senses that are in question; the heart rate being taken from visual inputs due to a discrepancy in proprioception; the rubber hand being taken in as our actual hand due to visual and tactile inputs matching. A lot more research needs to be done on the matter before conclusive answers can be gained, but the possibilities are certainly enticing, if I do say so myself.

My hypothesis on why the heart beat phenomenon works is probably because we subconsciously are so in tune with our heart-rate.. Its been going since day one and can be felt in every square-inch of our body.

On an average day, our concious mind completely filters out its existance because its this repetitive noise that doesn't benefit us directly.. We'll do better without being bothered by our internal coming and goings..

When we look at the matched heart rate on a 3D object in space- the subconscious matches it up and can start processing it as if it was a part of ourselves on some level.. To the point of wanting to protect it and be actuely aware of its immediate actual surroundings.. That's something else I noticed is I really was perceiving the space immediately around the avatar in a new way.

This could make PVP games pretty freaking terrifying I'd assume!! hahaaaa

damn you can of worms!!!